Futurist Raymond Kurzweil joins Google

Inventor takes on engineering director post at the Big G

World famous inventor and artificial intelligence futurist Raymond Kurzweil has announced that he's heading to Mountain View.

The 64-year old will join Google on Monday as a Director of Engineering and, in his new role, will focus on machine learning and language processing.

He wrote on his blog: "I'm thrilled to be teaming up with Google to work on some of the hardest problems in computer science so we can turn the next decade's 'unrealistic' visions into reality.

"I've been interested in technology, and machine learning in particular, for a long time: when I was 14, I designed software that wrote original music, and later went on to invent the first print-to-speech reading machine for the blind, among other inventions. I've always worked to create practical systems that will make a difference in people's lives, which is what excites me as an inventor."

Working towards the Singularity

Since his days as a software engineer, Kurzweil has found more fame as a futurist and has written books on the outer limits of machine intelligence and medical technology.

He's most well known for his 'Singularity' theory, which examines the point at which machines become more intelligent than humans and begin outsmarting them.

He added: "In 1999, I said that in about a decade we would see technologies such as self-driving cars and mobile phones that could answer your questions, and people criticized these predictions as unrealistic. Fast forward a decade–Google has demonstrated self-driving cars, and people are indeed asking questions of their Android phones."